Enfilade

From The Getty:

Giacomo Ceruti: A Compassionate Eye
Brescia Musei Foundation, 14 February — 11 June 2023
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, 18 July — 29 October 2023

In a group of remarkably haunting paintings by the Italian 18th-century artist Giacomo Ceruti, beggars, vagrants, and impoverished workers are portrayed in mesmerizing realism, emanating a sense of dignity and emotional depth. Why were these subjects painted? Where and how were these works displayed, and for whom? At a time when severe inequalities continue to mark even the wealthiest societies, Ceruti’s work testifies to the enduring power of art to reflect our shared humanity.

Organized with Fondazione Brescia Musei.

From The Getty Shop:

Davide Gasparotto, ed., with contributions by Roberta D’Adda, Francesco Frangi, Alessandro Morandotti, and Lorenzo Coccoli, Giacomo Ceruti: A Compassionate Eye (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2023), 128 pages, ISBN: 978-1606068366, $28.

The northern Italian artist Giacomo Ceruti (1698–1767) was born in Milan and active in Brescia and Bergamo. For his distinctive, large-scale paintings of low-income tradespeople and individuals experiencing homelessness, whom he portrayed with dignity and sympathy, Ceruti came to be known as Il Pitocchetto (the little beggar). Accompanying the first US exhibition to focus solely on Ceruti, this publication explores relationships between art, patronage, and economic inequality in early modern Europe, considering why these paintings were commissioned and by whom, where such works were exhibited, and what they signified to contemporary audiences. Essays and a generous plate section contextualize and closely examine Ceruti’s pictures of laborers and the unhoused, whom he presented as protagonists with distinct stories rather than as generic types. Topics include depictions of marginalized subjects in the history of early modern European art, the career of the artist and his significance in the history of European painting, and period discourses around poverty and social support. A detailed exhibition checklist, along with provenance, exhibition history, and a bibliography, provides information critical for the further understanding of Ceruti’s oeuvre.

Davide Gasparotto is senior curator of paintings and chair of curatorial affairs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

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Note (added 6 August 2023) — The posting was updated to include the Brescia venue, where the exhibition was entitled Miseria & Nobiltà: Giacomo Ceruti nell’Europa del Settecento.